Trial of Valence Graed

[Briek]

Lorelen has agreed to take the final jury spot, thanks for that

[Raona]

Is there an appropriate room for the job?

Sorry, I meant Highcastle at first...though there are only the town halls that seem appropos there. Highmoon/Deepingdale might actually offer a better option, in the form of the Highmoon Courtroom (28703, for my reference), at the north edge of the City, off Stallion Lane, just west of The Lord's Barracks.

Highmoon is pretty much open to everyone, yet the Tyrran faith might agree to it as a good compromise for a change of venue request? (From Valence's Counsel, Graham?)

[Gwain]

I can make this as it turns out. If you need a balif still let me know.

[Briek]

I'll put your name down Gwain

P.S bring a large club

[Harroghty]

Just post here if you would like a place to get a temporary designer makeover for the event. We can discuss options along those lines.

[Briek]

I had actually started work on an area but this seems a much easier option.

if we use the Highmoon courtroom that Raona suggested and go from there?

[Melusine]

Oh, and my character was just coming as a spectator. Sorry for the late reply!

[Briek]

All the positions are now filled, thank you to those that volunteered.

[Selveem]

I'd like to apply for the position of executioner.

Oh, wait, he's just on trial for theft.. <.<

[Briek]

the Highmoon Courtroom (28703, for my reference), at the north edge of the City, off Stallion Lane, just west of The Lord's Barracks.

just to remind everyone, this is the new venue of the event

[Briek]

A reminder, this event starts in under 6 hours

[Briek]

one hour to go

[Selveem]

Thanks for the heads up!

[Atraos]

can someone post a log of what occured at the trial? Missed it but would love to know what went on.

[Raona]

My experience in this trial, and with others in the past, leads me to suggest that in the future we try something closer to a play-by-post approach to them. That is, it is so hard to get all of the required individuals together at once, and the parts can take a long time with certain groups doing nothing during sections thereof, it would make more sense to me to approach them in this way:

1) Judge, Defendant (optional?), Defense Counsel, and Prosecution meet for RP with one or more witnesses. Events are logged. If needed, additional RP events are held to give all of the witnesses a chance to testify.
2) Judge provides instructions to the jury (IC or in writing) and the jury (with the log of the trial) deliberates in a separate RP event.
3) All meet for a final RP event (which will be the one of greatest interest to the general public) in which the verdict is read and sentence given (if applicable).

I think this would make each event more manageable in length, and reduce the amount of sitting around. Everyone was a real trooper about this event, and it was well organized, but it still went on a long time, and all trials seem to follow this pattern, and that's why I'm suggesting this innovation.

[Briek]

Thanks for coming everyone I think the moral of the story is if you expect to convict anyone you need your key witnesses to be there

[Gwain]

These kind of games tend to work better with capital crime courts. Those crimes are easier to manage then theft.

[Bellayana]

I'd like to thank everyone that participated in the RP, and I think Raona's suggestion would be greatly helpful in the future of trying to take someone to court. We got to give those Tyrrans their days in the court. Cirei did an awesome job as the Council and Graham was just hillarious with his opening statement. Kudos to everyone who sat through the whole trial!

[Adabelle]

On the forums I am always seeing people complain that the game is balanced towards "goodly" characters and against "evil" character. The thing is in my years of playing when it comes to a PC conflict I have never actually seen the good guys win.

Hell, from what I can tell from what my characters have heard IC the entire Bashibian church is populated by good characters who were kicked while they were down enough times they went to the dark side, so to speak. If you cant beat um join um?

[Enig]

Unfortunately, the conclusion I've come to is that this type of RP is either completely impossible, or pointless, depending on what you have available.

Without the ability to canvas NPCs for clues and track down evidence (ie. the stolen goods), it's impossible to put together a case that is beyond any shadow of a doubt. Just about the only thing you can actually bring before the jury that would hold much weight is a witness to the crime, but in that circumstance the case is already pretty much won (as long as said witness is at all reliable). In the case last night, though, I lacked a witness to the crime, and maybe I'm wrong but it feels like I could have done everything else perfectly and still not gotten a conviction on the grounds that doubt will exist unless someone actually saw the defendant lifting the goods from the victim.

So, yeah, it was fun, for sure! However in terms of actually trying to make a conviction the whole thing felt like an exercise in futility.